Batman Arkham Knight's Switch port performs pretty decently, provided you don't get in the Batmobile
Holy frame rate-based stuttering, Batman!
Batman Arkham Knight arrives on Switch today as part of Batman: Arkham Trilogy and its performance has already been put under the microscope. While the overall picture seems okay-ish, you might want to get ready to spend lots of time on foot.
Following its delay from the originally targeted date of October 13 to December 1, the Trilogy was always going to have a spotlight (possibly one with a bat-signal imprinted on it) trained on how well it renders superhero action on Nintendo’s handheld. Especially since the announcement of that delay said: “More time is needed to bring players the best possible experience on Nintendo Switch.”
Now, videos showing off how Arkham Knight runs have begun to pop up on the net and the verdict is well…mixed. YouTuber Cycu1 has posted a couple of these, with one being designed to show off how the graphics compare to the PS4 version of the game, while the other concentrates on testing how well it sticks to the 30 frames per second mark it aims for.
Starting off with the good news, the game looks pretty decent, with a number of commenters on the former video alluding to it having surpassed their expectations given the limitations the hardware naturally places on ports like this. Meanwhile, on the FPS front, things look to go pretty smoothly when you're leaping and gliding around Gotham on foot, but once you’re behind the wheel of the Batmobile, you’ll be fighting more than just baddies.
As you can see in the clip below, posted by fellow YouTuber GameRiot, driving around in Batman’s car/tank can see you afflicted by some fairly serious stuttering, as the frame rate drops from a fairly steady 30 to rapidly fluctuating numbers in the low twenties.
There’s even one point in Cycu1’s test that sees a Batmobile ride suddenly come to a pretty much dead halt for a few seconds mid-corner, before roaring back into life. Though, as pointed out by a few commenters, some of the game’s Batmobile sections caused performance issues on other platforms close to launch.
So, there’s seemingly hope that patches will be able to solve or at least limit some of the issues. Until then though, Batman’s famously good cardio is probably going to be put to the test.
Hey, look on the bright side, at least this Switch port doesn’t look quite as goofy as the one Mortal Kombat 1 got earlier this year.